


when you look to the sea

by akaeijis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, As in Lance's family, Bring Lance Home 2k17, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gen, Langst, Original Characters - Freeform, Sad, VoltronLanceBirthday, also their lsat name is alvarez, birthday fic, lance birthday fic, not in lance's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-11-22 10:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11378499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akaeijis/pseuds/akaeijis
Summary: July 28th is a circled date on their family calendar that sits by the kitchen window. A reminder on their phone. A day they schedule off of work.(Or, the Alvarez family takes a day of remembrance for their lost son.)





	when you look to the sea

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday you beautiful boy and i wish you to come home soon 
> 
> songs i rec for this: To the Sea by Seafret and Work Song by Hozier
> 
> also dedicated to pii <3 
> 
> EDIT: so yeah i know in sdcc we found out that lance is the youngest and looks over his niece and nephew but i wrote this before that info and i tried to base his family off the picture during the mind meld? so yeah !!!

 

 

> _sau_ _·da·de (n.) longing for someone or something that you love and is lost;_ _‘the love that remains’_

 

I. July 28th is a circled date on their family calendar that sits by the kitchen window. A reminder on their phone that goes off a week in advance. A day they schedule off of work. Sebastian groans when his phone sings a stereotypical Prince Royce at six A.M. He reaches for his phone to shut it down but the words ‘baby brother’s bday’ glare at him. He doesn’t need a reminder and the song he chose for the event is a good enough indicator, but he loves a good schedule.

He rolls over on the side, escaping the pursuit of daylight, running his hand through his hair. With his eyes closed, his mind runs through potential gift possibilities. What’s he going to get Lance this year? Some special space device? Sebastian groans and depletes that suggestion. Too expensive. Maybe just a shirt from Walmart?

He thinks about asking ma when he gets up for coffee instead; Lance is a heavy sleeper, anyway.

Sebastian turns around, this time, the bright rays glare mockingly at him.

Oh yeah.

Who is he fooling?

Lance isn’t here.

 

II. It’s late morning and the house is silent when Miguel opens the door to Lance’s room. It’s a bit like an unspoken rule to not open the room after they all went through the grieving. Marley (their beautiful lab that Lance loves so much) follows him by his feet.

The blinds are shut, so Miguel fixes it. Lance never liked them closed. He never even closed the window in general. He liked the warm breeze. Or that’s what Lance said anyway.

The glow in the dark stars aren’t working since it’s still light out. Dust gathers by a collection of merchandise and books about space that Miguel doesn’t dare touch. The tape on the posters seem on the hinge of falling and the bed covers are untouched.

Miguel opts for the floor: it’s a neutral space.

Marley plays around with one of his arms and Miguel gladly gives it. By shifting around, he spots one poster.

“Keraybearos mission?” Miguel reads, unsure about his pronunciation. Miguel studies the poster again, it’s the one Lance stared at the most during late nights. There’s a handsome man with twinkling eyes and strong arms. Maybe he’s the one who took Lance away from him. From his family.

But the man on the poster seems to have such a kind face, Miguel shakes his head.

 

 

 

III. They decide to spend the day at the beach. Fitting, for a boy like Lance. As a boy, he would never stay still, constantly sneaking out and escaping to other places. Sometimes the rooftop, sometimes the park. Maybe Hunk’s house. The outskirts of the city during his high school years. The beach was his favorite escapade though. Lance would really never settle.

(Fitting how he would just disappear out of nowhere.)

Andrea sits on the beach, hair flying as she watches the rest of her children jump around the shore. She still counts: One, two, three, four…

Every time there’s still one missing.

She checks the table that’s spread in front of her. Fresh mangoes and garlic knots, a fresh pitcher of iced tea collecting stray drops of water.

The sun begins to wan and the light echoes her heartbeat. It’s reminiscent of the sunset she and her son watched while rocking on a hammock. She whispered in his ear, saying how she would give all the stars to him.

She looks to the sea. And thinks of him. 

 

 

IV. Carlos brings out the finale: the tres leches cake that Andrea made earlier. Sebastian calls the rest of the kids over and they sit down, away from the heat of the sun.

Carlos looks down at the cake with a smile but no mirth in his eyes. The cake reads, _‘happy birthday lance’_ in loopy cursive.

Lance would love this, the open ocean and blue sky. He thinks about when he took Lance to the beach for the first time, a fifteen minute walk from their home and through the town squares and cantinas to Varadero. The boy was captivated the foam on top of the waves and how it would push and pull away from him and kept trying to keep walking closer to the sea. Carlos lost how many times he had to scoop the Lance back in his arms and save him from the sea.

Carlos has never felt so lost on a beach before. He’s the one who taught Lance how the ocean can be another home but looking at the sea now, he feels like a part of him is missing and gone and never to be replaced.

His emotions are like the waves, nostalgia crashing at the same time as love and everything that reminds him of Lance does.

 

 

V. They start the drive back home as soon as the horizon fades into a purple gradient. Carlos cracks open the alcohol cabinet and offers a whole bottle to Andrea. Maria reaches her hand in and takes a whiskey.

She’s of age, she says. They reprimand her but it’s a facade. She’s been drinking since she was fifteen.

She drinks a whole shot like it’s nothing and pours another one and another until she pushes the shot cup away and just opts for the bottle. She takes a swig like it’s nothing. And it is nothing. It’s nothing compared to the pain of losing someone without saying goodbye.

She keeps drinking because she’s as tough as steel and fights in bars daily when she hears snickering when she holds hands with her girlfriend.

(It brings her back to a time when she was thirteen and Lance was nine and she had her hands balled up into fists as she stood between him and schoolyard bullies.)

She passes it back and forth between her and Sebastian until their both wasted and her face is planted on the dining table.

“ _Y el corazon,_ ” she starts to drawl out, the cheesy song that Lance played non-stop in his room and blasted when they did the chores. She remembered that she and Sebastian would groan but Lance would also dance around the kitchen with both Fernanda and Miguel on his toes and their mom singing into a broom and their dad spinning her around.

She would do anything to go back to those times.

“ _No tiene cara_ ,” Sebastian follows her and she giggles. Laughing at the image of their prim and proper older brother singing Lance’s song.

 

 

VI. Fernanda sneaks out of her room a few hours after she hears her parent’s door click. The coast is clear: Miguel isn’t a snitch and Sebastian and Maria are passed out. She’s only twelve but Lance taught her the art of escaping well.

She walks up to the end of the hallway to climb up the stairs. It’s only a guest bedroom and a ladder to the attic. She avoids all the spots she knows makes a creek and treads lightly on her toes. Lance taught her to always bring the ladder to the attic slowly because it might bang the floor and shake the whole house.

She opens the attic window with all of her might and it finally pops in and she’s greeted with the warm air of Tampa. She sticks her legs out first and lays down gingerly on the rooftop.

The breeze has a sprinkle of salt with an undertone of warmth. It breathes in her. Fernanda looks back at the stars in front of her. It seems endless, too bright and dark at the same time.

_“I can’t get a piloting job until I’m at least twenty-one, Fernie,” He told her._

_“So, you’ll stay until I’m,” She counted on her fingers. Six years. “Thirteen?_

_“Of course! I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”_

She was only nine when he disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Fernanda puts her hands up, trying to touch the night sky. She keeps her feet grounded and weight pooled by her stomach to prevent her from slipping. Lance always wanted to explore the universe. She knows because there are posters all over his wall and faded glow in the dark stars that don’t really work anymore.

She thinks, Lance would want to say hi to the stars, so Fernanda waves both of her arms towards the universe.

 

 

-

 

 

Lance sits closer to the windows of the main deck. He snuck out of the party, just for a while. He presses his hands to the glass, as if it could bring him closer to the life he left behind, to Earth, to his family. 

 

* * *

 

 

_*the song is corazon sin cara by prince royce  bc i feel like lance is cheesy like me_

**Author's Note:**

> @ vld,, i love lance (also push back the date bc my heart cannot take it) 
> 
> lance's family tree goes  
> dad: Carlos  
> mom: Andrea  
> kids: Sebastian, Maria, Lance, Miguel, Fernanda
> 
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akaeijis) or [tumblr](http://tidalance.tumblr.com/), 
> 
> comments and kudos and bookmarks are appreciated!!


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